"If I can stop one Heart from Breaking,
I shall not live in Vain;
If I can Ease one Life the Aching;
I shall not live in Vain."
I have a Solution that will reduce pressure on IIT aspirants but do not know how to get this across to HRD Minister of India. Suggestions are welcome. (Ram Krishnaswamy)

“I would not call it a suicide, but an institutional murder. This is not the first suicide remember. Right from Senthil Kumar, this is the eighth suicide of a Dalit student in the Hyderabad University. That cannot just be accidental,” Mr. Satchidanandan said on the sidelines of the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival here.

“Clearly there is a design in the sense that there is continued oppression of Dalit students in the university like elsewhere, like in IIT Madras,” he alleged.

The poet likened the Hyderabad incident to the June 2015 incident in IIT Madras, which had derecognised the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (APSC), many of whose members are Dalits, following a complaint that it was critical of Prime Minister.

Recognition was reinstated to the group later.

Mr. Satchidanandan also said that despite the suspension of the four Dalit students in Hyderabad being revoked, the death of Velmula had “already done the damage”.

“It is much more than just a dalit vs non-dalit issue. Of course Rohith being a Dalit was a major thing, but that is just an expression of the kind of violence that some people have in them and their desire to suppress it using any means.

“It could be murder or forcing someone to commit suicide.

Or it could just be silencing someone like a Perumal Murugan,” he said adding that Ambedkar “would be shocked to know that after so many years of freedom, the wonderful Constitution he drafted is not respected”.

Mr. Satchidanandan also questioned the letters by the HRD ministry to institutions like IIT-Madras and Hyderabad University.

“The HRD ministry writing letters is something that is absolutely new. First of all, institutions have their autonomy. It is true they are audited, but in academic matters they have complete autonomy and that is being questioned,” he said.

Mr. Satchidanandan, who had resigned from all positions in the Sahitya Akademi to protest against the killing of writer M M Kalburgi, said the literary institution had an obligation to defend the freedom of expression, but had failed to rise to the occasion.

“If you put all the recent happenings together, you will find there is a growing culture of intolerance. The public intellectual is not safe, the writer cannot write what he wants. You cannot eat what you want to eat, you cannot think what you want to think, filmmakers cannot make the films they want. Who is safe in this country?” he asked.